


Walking In The Crystal's Light III (FFXIV Writing Challenge 2019)

by lilithqueen



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Au Ra Raen (Final Fantasy XIV), Au Ra Xaela (Final Fantasy XIV), Elezen (Final Fantasy XIV), Elezen Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Feelings About Ishgard, Garleans (Final Fantasy XIV), Hyur (Final Fantasy XIV), Ishgard (Final Fantasy XIV), Miqo'te (Final Fantasy XIV), Multi, Summoner Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-09 08:31:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 13,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20850503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilithqueen/pseuds/lilithqueen
Summary: FFXIVWrite's third year, and my third run of prompt fills! Including but not limited to: tired elezen, grumpy and lovestruck au ra, Garlean soldiers of various degrees of loyalty and morality, and Ishgardian politics.





	1. Voracious (Gantsetseg Bayaqud, M'naago Rahz)

**Author's Note:**

> I also have a tumblr! come find me at [ffxiv-swarm.](http://ffxiv_swarm.tumblr.com/)

Gantsetseg sprinted off the bridge, flung herself face-first into the pond a fulm below her, and screamed into the water. The rest of Rhalgr’s Reach was probably staring at her, but she didn’t care. It couldn’t get _worse_. Cold water, that was the ticket. Cold water and time.

When she surfaced, M’naago was staring at her with a raised eyebrow and a question-marked tail. “You okay there?”

Oh. Cold water wasn’t helping. Gan wiped at her eyes, hopelessly smearing her face paint, and warred within herself. M’naago was a captain of the Ala Mhigan Resistance. If anyone hated Garleans, it was her—and she _should_, after all they’d done to her nation and her people. She’d judge Gan worse than Q’yala did. No, Gan shouldn’t tell her. If she had to confess, it should be to someone...well. It should be Rita, frankly. Rita had no room to talk and would probably give tips.

“The Garlean is _hot_.”

Oops.

M’naago swished her tail behind her, confusion slowly deepening to incredulity on her face. “We’ve met Portia, aye.”

“No!” Really, she should stop talking. Portia Brewster was no fighter, but a blacksmith in good standing with much-admired shoulders and a dazzling smile—an entirely respectable choice to be attracted to, regardless of how many eyes she had. She and M’naago could _bond_ over Portia Brewster. “It ain’t—look, the workshop gets hot and Al rolled his sleeves up and—“

M’naago held up a hand to stop her, crouching on the bridge to peer into her face. “Al. This is...”

Gan sank below the water’s surface again, ignoring M’naago’s exclamation of _Alan the mechanic?!_ If she held her breath long enough, maybe the miqo’te would go away. If she sank to the bottom of the lake, maybe the chill would leach out visions of Alan’s hands in leather gloves, his pale arms with scattered scars gleaming in the light. Her mind would be still and peaceful. No fevered thoughts of Alan’s eyes intent and focused as a hawk’s, of her unbuttoning his shirt the rest of the way to trace the lean muscles she _knew_ couldn’t be just in her head, of the way the fabric of his work trousers stretched and he wasn’t _big_ but that was fine by her, they’d fit together—

Her lungs burned. She broke the surface, gasping for air. M’naago was still watching her.

“You’ve got bloody _awful_ taste.”

Oh, now _those_ were fighting words. Before Gan could think better of it, she brought her arm around in an arc, splashing M’naago with a sheet of frigid pond water. As the miqo’te launched herself at her in response, she found herself grinning. _This_ was what a warrior of the Bayaqud was meant to do, not moon uselessly over former Imperials.

Granted, the warriors of her tribe usually meant actual _combat_, but a splash war took her mind off her troubles just fine.


	2. Bargain (Tiphanie Mercer)

_Scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. _

There are those who look at Ishgard and expect steel. Fire. The clashing together of knights in full charge. The terrible leap of the dragoon. The thunder of a priest’s sermon, lit by the many-colored sunlight streaming through radiant windows. Glory and gold in the High Houses, squalor and suffering in the lower city. The final scream and silence of Witchdrop for those deemed _heretic_.

These people are, of course, correct. But Tiphanie Mercer walks the shadowed back halls and offices of the Vault’s middle floors, and learns an entirely different side of her city.

Ishgard, she discovers, is a thing half-heard in silence, a thing hiding daggers behind smiles and steel behind silk. The machinations of government are a folding fan made entirely of shadows, each pane unfolding to reveal another obligation, another dark thread binding its cogs, another coil of clinging smoke that whispers _All this in exchange for your heart, your words, your soul._

She asks Madame Tempscire about it once, and the older woman stares out a window for a long while before responding.

“Everything we do is a bargain, girl.” Her voice is hard and sharp as a spear-point, but Tiphanie welcomes the sting. “You just remember that some things shouldn’t be traded away.”

She has her honor, firm and unyielding as the mountain beneath her feet. To lose it would make her craven.

She has her heart, crying out for the pain of her city’s people. To lose it would make her cruel.

She has her honesty. To lose it…

_Would make her a politician,_ whispers the poison smoke of Parliament.

She closes her ears. She will find something else to trade.


	3. Lost (Gantsetseg Bayaqud)

There are places where the Bayaqud can bury their dead—places where the soil is deep and soft, where the ground is not a thin scree of dirt over bare rock. These places are few and far between, and Gantsetseg of the Bayaqud is no udgan. The birds she sees circling overhead—looking for an easy meal, unwilling to descend when they see her moving among the twisted metal and the groans of those ironmen who have not died yet (only because she hasn’t reached them yet)—will not come to her if she opens her arms and chants prayers for her dead kin.

She should chant anyway. To say the names of the dead is to ensure that they are remembered. _Here is Buliqai son of Otogene, here is Baidur son of Kokoghoa…_

If she opens her mouth, she will howl. If she opens her mouth, it will crack the shell of ice that is all that’s keeping her moving forward, listening only to the part of her mind that wants to live. She is numb inside and out, but that is better than death. The men in iron could not kill her. Neither will her grief.

But the cold will, if she falters. If she lays down in the snow, closes her eyes, and lets it claim her. The ground is still treacherous—razor shards of steel, half-melted snow, a broken corpse that had once been an ironman—and she needs all her focus to keep her balance. She’s been in weather like this; objectively, she knows she’s been in weather _worse_ than this, and she knows she has to find shelter and stay warm. The men in iron won’t be using _their_ clothing anymore, and she is tall for a woman. Her unbound hair is wet and tangled, but she shoves it under a bloody and ill-fitting helmet and that at least keeps her head warm. Her tail presents a problem—she really doesn’t understand how these ironmen even balance without one—until she slices through a trouser seam with her unbroken claws.

Her tribesmen’s clothing would fit better. The drifting snow has covered Baidur’s face and Odgerel’s mismatched eyes, and she cannot bring herself to approach them. If she howls, she will not stop, and there will be none to avenge them when the vultures have gorged.

There is a stream she saw, the barest of thin trickles through the rocks. Where it ends, there will be a lake—or the sea. And where there is water, people will gather. They might be more ironmen, more three-eyed hyur...but she remembers the tone of her captors’ voices before the crash, remembers the way they’d pointed at maps she couldn’t read, and thinks of a proverb she’d heard from a Hingan traveler about her enemy’s enemies.

Her kinsmen are dead, and the snow is coming down faster. She is alone in mountains uncharted by any tribe, with nothing but the rags on her back and a jagged-edged metal bar that—she hopes, with the part of her mind capable of such emotions— will serve as a weapon. She has no idea how to get back home.

She has nothing left to lose.


	4. Shifting Blame (Portia Brewster)

_They don’t pay us to think._

_It’s for the good of the Empire._

_It will civilize the savages._

_I was only following orders._

She wondered if that was what they’d said, when the red moon had descended._ I was only following orders._ So easy to say, so easy to look at your neighbor’s grieving child or mother or husband, and hide behind that shield. Ave imperium wiped all clean.

Petros had confided in her, once, before he’d been shipped out. She remembered his eyes, dark and serious and so unlike the smiling pilus whose picture was still wedged in the frame of her vanity mirror. _Our legatus was working on the Meteor project, the one that levelled Bozja. I think… _But he’d cut himself off, and told her—lying—_I’m sure I’ll be fine._

The official papers blamed the Eorzeans. Petros had feared van Darnus. There was but a single legion left in Eorzea, and the whispers from those friends of Petros’s who had survived or not been there—those who remembered his fiancee, the daughter of an officer himself slain in battle—breathed that van Baelsar was to be declared traitor any day, for going against his orders and interfering with what the radio had called  _our future glory. _

She remembered that the sky had been red for a week. They had shipped home the shattered remnants of Petros’s axe, with official condolences.

After three weeks of boot camp— _barely enough for anyone to tell one end of a sword from the other_ , she recalled Petros despairing—she sat down across from the dispatch officer and asked, as a pure Garlean citizen and a willing volunteer, to be assigned to the XIVth.


	5. Vault (Erasmus eir Niveus)

They say the Dzemael’s new fortress—their Darkhold, they call it, which is bloody pompous if anyone was to ask Erasmus Westmoore, knight of House Fortemps for all his sins—is impregnable. They say the Imperials currently knocking on their door won’t break through in a thousand years. They’re already talking about pushing forward, striking them when they’re not expecting it.

Erasmus remembers the screams of dying men and dying dragons. The scars on his calves are still red and raw. He remembers the flash of disappointment—_disappointment!_\--in his commander’s eyes when he’d had the nerve to survive instead of fighting to his dying breath. He thinks about the weapons he’s seen the Imperials use.

They say the Darkhold will never break, but the Imperials will crack it like an egg, and he, Erasmus, will probably be one of the first shoved in front of the gunblades.

The Imperial camp is malms away through rocky terrain that, at this time of year, is mostly mud. He leaves anyway. He doesn’t take a chocobo—they’d miss a bird more than they would a spearman. Birds are expensive, and Brume rats are cheap. As the only man at the farthest guard post, it will be bells before anyone even realizes he hasn’t shown up for breakfast. Not, he thinks, that they’d care. They can find more dragon fodder.

The Imperials stop him, of course, with leveled guns and a command like a whipcrack in the night. “State your business.”

He drops his spear and holds up his empty hands._ See, not a threat. _The smile is probably unnecessary, but it can’t hurt. “I came to tell you everything I know about the Darkhold.”

“And what,”--this from their commander, anonymous save for the different color of their uniform tabard--”would you know about the Darkhold, Ishgardian?”

He takes a breath, aware it might be his last. “I used to be a guard there. Figured I’d throw my lot in with the winning side.” And it’s stupid, but he can’t help asking, “Hey, you don’t feed people to dragons, do you?”

The commander actually laughs at that, a dry wheeze of amusement through their helmet. “Only the useless ones.”

Erasmus decides in that moment that he will be very useful indeed.


	6. First Steps (Evrard Briardionne)

He’s never held a sword before.

Alright, that is a lie. He’s never held a sword with the intent to _use_ one before. Magic, he knows intimately—how to conjure flames or ice or wind, how to make the ground beneath his feet shake with his aether. He didn’t take top marks in his thaumaturgy lessons by _accident_. He is, he thinks, no disgrace with a quarterstaff either, even when he isn’t using it to channel and direct his spells. But a sword? A sword, and not a hidden dagger or a plain utility knife?

“Again.”

Grimacing, he shakes his hand out and kneels to pick up the slim blade his instructor has just twisted out of his grip. “I suspect I may just be bad at this.”

The miqo’te sizes him up, with that appraising look in his eyes that Evrard’s come to know well. It’s refreshing to be able to trust judgement that will _not_ involve the word “heretical.” Sister Pavlianne had been fond of threatening blasphemy charges against particularly terrible budding thaumaturges, on the basis that they were misusing Halone’s gift. “...My previous students were usually the other way around—swordsmen who wished to take up magic suited to their aether reserves. They often had a much harder time grasping the basics than you have.”

Evrard, feeling scrapes and bruises all over from where X’rhun Tia has been knocking him into the dirt all day, isn’t particularly reassured. Still, he settles into a fencer’s stance again and meets the older man’s eyes across the length of their blades. “I will remember that next time I drop my sword on my foot.”

And now X’rhun is laughing, showing fangs that would make him flinch if he hadn’t grown used to Busari’s. “Oh, _everyone_ does that at least once!”

“...You are not helping.”

He’d been forced practically at knifepoint to learn to dance in the Scholasticate; while he hadn’t ever been very good at it, he begins to discover—over weeks and months of training later—that some of the principles are the same. Step _here_, turn _there_, arm extended at precisely _this_ angle...

The path of the red mage is long and fraught with peril. Yet he thinks of all the things he left Ishgard for—thinks of children under an iron yoke, blood melting ice under his feet, the shadow of a dragon’s wings—and picks up his sword.

He has stood by idly and watched as his world crumbled once. He will not do so again.


	7. Forgiven (Evrard Briardionne)

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”

_Fire. Ice. The screaming and the blood and the silence. The heavy dead weight he’d needed to have Busari help tip over the edge of the city, where it would lay until scavengers or aether tore it apart._

“It has been...”

Years. Priests never confessed to each other, at least not in Ishgard. Not if they didn’t want their foulest crimes to reach Inquisitorial ears inside a fortnight, direct from the lips of the brothers and sisters who broke the sacred silence of the confessional for their own gain.

“...Six years, since my last confession.”

And he was glad beyond measure for the wall between them.

“I have.”

The words dried up in his throat. He could feel the waiting silence, patient as a dragon.

“In the defense of myself and my flock, I have deliberately taken the life of an Inquisitor of the Church.”

There. He’d said it. Any moment now would be the cold recriminations, the curses, the probable murder trial. He had a horrible vision of Busari dying upon the swords of Temple Knights to rescue him.

Silence for one heartbeat, then two. The priest’s voice was quiet and dry when at last he spoke. Evrard suspected he’d probably heard worse. “And do you repent of this crime? Swear to the Fury never to do it again?”

_No._

“Yes.”

_Halone have mercy on me, an unrepentant sinner…_

The priest was silent again—mulling over his punishment, Evrard thought—but his words shook him to his core. “Then you are not forgiven.”

Shock ripped the protest out of him before he could think better of it. _“What?!”_

“Is the Fury not the Queen of War? She who treads the dragon underfoot, whose spears are lightning, whose shield defends the righteous? And are you not an ordained priest, sworn to carry out Her will? How, then, can you blame yourself for protecting innocents under your care? Do you scourge yourself in penance for every monster you slay?”

He squeezed his eyes shut. “Father, I--”

A bone-deep sigh. “You are young and foolish. We who minister to our flocks are no less holy, no less worthy, than the Inquisitors in their Tribunal. Go, reflect on these words—reflect upon the Fury, whose love for all is balanced on the spear’s point—and sin no more.”

Evrard stayed where he knelt. He wasn’t sure his legs would work at the moment. “And my penance, Father?”

Another sigh, this one exasperated. “_Go_.”

He went.


	8. Shards of the Crystal (Ritanelle Soleil/Emmanellain Fortemps)

Objectively, the Crystarium was beautiful. Objectively, the Crystarium was safe. Objectively, the world of the First Shard was where her friends were, where she had an obligation—_a duty_—to remain until both it and the Source were free of the threat of looming Calamity.

Ritanelle didn’t feel much like being objective.

She walked through the crowds to the rooms she shared with Eirk’a, conscious of the weight of her bag on her shoulder. She’d tried closing her eyes and sitting in the shade of the buildings, but even that hadn’t helped. The noise of the market was different. The _voices_ were different. Her own people had always been rare, but here in the First they seemed to be nonexistent. She’d caught the locals staring at Eirk’a’s eyes and the length of his fangs. And there wasn’t enough shadow.

Eirk’a, thank the Twelve, wasn’t in. She wasn’t sure she was up to talking to him without screaming. Instead she threw her bag on her bed with an audible thump and an involuntary sigh of relief—she’d forgotten how heavy it was, carrying most of her possessions around with her—and stood blankly for a moment, staring at the worn multicolored coverlet. The Exarch had suggested they all rest. It was probably a good idea, if they were going to be fighting things he’d summed up as the Light version of voidsent.

Instead, she crossed to the window and sank onto the seat, staring out at the city below her. Of _course_ they’d wound up in an upper story. Eirk’a was probably thrilled. Ritanelle looked up at the great glass wall encircling the city, gleaming in the perpetual sunlight and doing absolutely nothing to block the glare, and thought about Ishgard. About the dark stone and gray skies and the cold that sliced even through her most luxurious fur coats. About the people, hard as that stone but welcoming once it was cracked.

Mugs of hot spiced mead, warming her down to her bones.

Dark hair flopping into its owner’s face or laying like silk on a pillow, showing its proper shade of muted purple only in direct sunlight.

A smile, radiant.

And she’d never—

_I am trapped here._ The thought hit her like a knife between her ribs. Without so many blessings of Hydaelyn or a pull from the other end strong enough to tear souls from bodies, to attempt to traverse the rift would be almost certain suicide. _We are trapped here._

Holding one end of a paper pattern steady for Tataru as she pinned around it. The bone-deep tremor of magic coursing through her as she sparred with Coultenet. The cool glass of Dariustel’s spectacles as she cleaned them on her shirt for him, his leather armor being unsuited for the task. Rrisya’s tail curled around her waist and into her lap, a friendly gesture that she’d never expected from a lancer taciturn enough to rival Estinien. Emmanellain’s arms around her, warm and solid and safe, guarding her from nightmares the way he wanted—recklessly but so sweetly it melted her heart—to guard her against everything else.

Things she’d never feel again.

She squeezed her eyes shut against the glaring sky and wept.


	9. Hesitate (Tiber Gallius)

“Capsari.”

_Vivian_.

“I was wondering if y—if you...”

_Do I address him informally or not? Should I? We are friends. Friends. But I want—_

Vivian hadn’t even looked up from their book, some enormous battered grimoire emblazoned with signs Tiber couldn’t and didn’t want to decipher. It would probably make his eyes bleed, but Vivian was absorbed—as they had been, ever since Coultenet had lent them the use of his library. As he watched, they licked their index finger lightly to turn a page. _Oh._ Not for the first time, he wondered about spontaneous combustion.

He took a breath. It killed him to disturb them, but this was the first day they’d had off in weeks, and the last one they’d likely have for weeks more with so many of their comrades out of commission. He’d never get a better chance. “Vivian?”

Silence. Then, glasses gleaming, they lifted their head. “Hm?” He couldn’t see their eyes.

Tiber took another breath, deeper. It wasn’t helping. He needed _time_. Hastily, he fished out a cigarette from its case, rifling through his pockets for his matches. “I...would you...”

_Come to dinner with me. Let me take you dancing, to the theater, to watch the sun rise over the lake. Let me bring you armfuls of roses or the heads of your enemies. Let me kiss you._

“Never mind.”

Vivian looked at him for a long moment. As Tiber considered the statistical likelihood of the ground swallowing him where he sat, they reached over to him, hand raised. He held himself very, very still.

A tiny spark flashed from their fingers, lighting the cigarette he’d held frozen to his lips. “Here.”

The smoke tasted like aether.


	10. Foster (Rrisya Otombe)

It wasn’t that she didn’t _love_ her parents, Rrisya reflected. They clearly loved her and wanted the best for her and her little brother and sisters. Her da’s side of the family, too, were always coming by with food or supplies or buy orders for the shop, and her da’s mum made the _best_ mi’qabobs. She knew she’d be happy if they were her whole world, if she didn’t have to think about Gridania or the Elementals or anything.

But her mum’s side of the family wouldn’t let her forget. They were in the front room now, her grandma and aunts and cousins (she had clan cousins! She hadn’t even known about them until they showed up—but then again, neither had her mum until her aunts had proudly introduced their children) all talking and arguing and generally being loud. She’d taken refuge with her stuffed ahriman in the garden, hugging its round body and wishing she’d brought her ball with her. There’d been yelling earlier, with Aunt Vayu in her enormous feather cloak demanding to know _How could you bring your children up in this city, Hahki?!_ and her mum snarling back that this was no discussion to have in front of innocent miqittens.

_I am twelve_, she thought grumpily. _I can listen to boring grownup talk if I want. And I know how this city looks at us! _Like feral animals. The big Wildwoods and short-eared Hyurs were downright rude to her da and uncle when they didn’t care if she heard them, and she’d seen men staring way too long at her mum. But it was her home. She was going to inherit the shop, probably, so she’d have to be around to run it. The Mriihas were depending on her.

Footsteps approached, and her ears pricked up. “Who—“

“It’s just your auntie Sahel, jumpy cat.”

Oh. Aunt Sahel was kind of scary, with the big owl mask that covered most of her face—especially now, stomping out into the yard with her spear in hand. As she assumed a fighting stance, staring out into the night, Rrisya cleared her throat nervously. “Um. What are you doing?”

Her tail was puffed up like a bottlebrush. “Blowing off steam. Sometimes grownups get tired of arguing too.”

And then she started to move, and all Rrisya could do was stare. Aunt Sahel’s bone-tipped spear was a white blur in the darkness, weaving figure-eights and circles and spinning, widening spirals as she danced it around the garden. Each footfall was planted firmly where nothing had been sown; when a spin took her into a leap, Rrisya watched with her heart in her mouth as the momentum brought the spear thudding into the ground mere ilms away from a just-ripe pumpkin.

Finally, she found her voice. “I wanna learn to do _that_.”

Aunt Sahel leaned on her spear, watching her with a look that she realized belatedly was almost wary. “These are the spear hunting techniques of the Otombe clan.”

Before she could think she was on her feet, ears flat and tail bristling. “I’m an Otombe! Just like you and mum!”

“Are you,” she said. She didn’t sound convinced, but before Rrisya could work up a defense she continued, “If you are—truly, that is—you’ll find us after we leave. Look south for the chocobo skulls hung up in blue linen.” After a moment, tail twitching, she added, “Let your mum take you. She...we disagree, but she’s still my little sister.”

Rrisya thought about how sharp bone spears could be, and about how people looked at Keepers of the Moon like her.

And she said, “I will.”


	11. Snuff (Ritanelle Soleil)

Bells ago, it had seemed fun. Bells ago, it had seemed _necessary_. She’d launched herself out of the bed she’d only just clambered into, thrown a wrap on over her bare skin, and lunged for her desk in a near-panic, tearing apart her neatly organized drawers in search of a pencil and paper to scribble out the idea—the breakthrough—she’d had before it vanished into the night.

_Protractor. Compass. Five to the square root of…_

But that had been bells ago. She’d been forced to light a candle to see what she was doing; the tall taper had long since melted in dribbles onto the desk. Her eyes burned, her head throbbed, and her limbs felt like lead. The formulae she’d managed to mark out wavered as she stared blankly at them, willing her brain to come up with a conclusion.

_I should sleep._

_I can’t sleep._

_Not until I’m done._

And she was so _close_. The numbers added up, and the array—she’d made notes on its composition but hadn’t drawn it—would suffice for summoning the Leviathan-egi she’d been stuck on for weeks. The only problem was scale and materials. Water wasn’t an element she often worked with, but she _knew_ what would allow her to focus the energies of Leviathan. Y’mhitra had mentioned it once. It was on the very edge of her memory, just out of reach, and she couldn’t—_bloody_—remember.

She let her head fall to the desk. _Come on. Please. Just let me finish this before I go to sleep and forget. Gods—Thaliak. Oi, Thaliak, help a girl out?_

The gods did not respond. She heard a reedy whimpering noise and realized it was coming from her throat.

Eventually, she reached up and pinched out the candle flame.


	12. Fingers Crossed (Q'sevet Tia)

The Gold Saucer is chaos. Gold gleams, lights flash like daggers, music blares. Losing your focus on the gambling tables means it’s lost forever, for surely you’ll never find it again. Only the “bunnies”—the servers, so nicknamed for their furry-eared hats and abbreviated costumes—can move through the crowds like oases of calm. Sitting down at the tables themselves isn’t any better, because that is where the most metaphorical (and occasionally literal) blood will be spilled; in the Saucer, your hand of cards or mahjong tiles or dice is worth more than the breath in your lungs.

Q’sevet Tia loves it.

The dice table is silent, but he can feel the tremors of anticipation running through his opponents echoed in the way his ears twitch, in the way his tail switches back and forth under the table. Nobody dares to speak or make a sound—nobody dares to do anything which might turn aside the fragile whispers of Lady Luck. They touch iron or tap the wood of their chairs, but they say nothing. The pot’s only grown since he arrived, and nobody’s won it all yet. His narrowed gaze slides from one man to the next, and he thinks, _Nobody’s brave enough to bet it all. Yet._

“Gentlemen? I wager the pot.”

He takes a deep breath and crosses the fingers of his free hand. There’s the thread of a prayer in his mind. _Please..._

The dice roll.


	13. Wax (Shinju Toyotama)

The _Dawn of Thavnair_ may be a glorified pleasure barge—and looks absolutely ridiculous in the harbor next to massive Lominsan galleons and sleek junks all the way from Doma—but it’s carrying cargo, and so Shinju has to inspect it. She takes one look at the officious captain with his waxed moustache and is very glad he’s her last stop before lunch. Though she manages to hold her head high as she approaches (she’s an assessor in full uniform, she is _allowed_ to be here), her tail curls nervously behind her. His eyes aren’t friendly.

“Pardon me, sir. Cargo assessment.”

He takes a moment to look her up and down, lingering on the carbuncle trotting along beside her. It’s Hisui today, who sits up on her hind legs and sniffs at him inquisitively. Finally, he nods and waves her up the gangplank. “Go right ahead, miss.”

It’s not a large ship, but she takes her time with it. Silk from Hingashi, spices from Thavnair, tea from Doma, all in its proper places and none of it illegal—still, it’s best to be thorough. She’s had unpleasant surprises before. (The curse bottle with the trapped ghosts in it still gives her nightmares of bone-chilling cold and grasping, spectral hands.) As she exits the ship’s hold, Hisui chirps and she freezes.

Oh. It’s just the captain. “Well?”

She glances down at her list, even though she already has it memorized. “Everything seems to be in its proper place, sir.”

“Good, good,” He strokes his moustache thoughtfully, staring off into the middle distance. Some part of her is expecting it, and isn’t disappointed when he mutters, “We took on a letter for here in one of the Thanalan ports, and it doesn’t feel right. You’re all arcanists, aye? Mind taking a look?”

_It’s a letter_, she thinks. _How bad could it be?_

It’s in the captain’s quarters, shoved in among the wealth of gold and jewels overflowing every inch of space on the desk. Shinju makes a face at the clutter—kami, it must be a shipboard thing because every ship’s living spaces look like nests for very rich rats—but then the captain is offering her the sealed letter, and she frowns at it. It looks absurdly normal to her regular senses: plain white parchment folded and secured with a purple wax seal she doesn’t recognize.

Hisui takes a sniff of the air and _snarls_, fur puffing up until she’s twice her normal size. Shinju drops it instinctively, backing away as it flutters to the floor. “Sir—“

The wax seal cracks open, and a feral gibbering _thing_ manifests above it and launches itself at her face. Before she can grab her scroll case, Hisui blasts it out of the air with a gust of wind; as it hits the opposite wall, the captain skewers it with a thrown dagger. She has a moment to examine it—round body, thin limbs, horrible open mouth with too many teeth—before it dissipates into aether.

The captain is shaking. “What the bloody hell was that?!”

She has to catch her breath before answering him. Surprise or no, it’s not unprecedented—and like everything else, Mealvaan’s Gate has a procedure for it. “Voidsent. Looked like a gremlin. I’m afraid you’ll have to wait to unload your cargo, sir. My superiors will want to check it thoroughly.”

Staring at the oily smoke drifting away where the gremlin was, he nods slowly. “Uh. Huh. Aye.”

And Shinju slips away to take her lunch break.


	14. Scour (Ritanelle Soleil)

Ritanelle Soleil is, at heart, a creature of caves. Of vast caverns lit only by crystals, of bare stone and sprouting mushrooms and the reassuring weight of tonzes of rock overhead. Open spaces make her nervous; the more of the horizon she can see, the more she wants to run for shelter, wrap herself up in her cloak or someone else’s arms until she’s safe again.

She’s not sure she can survive the heart of the Sagolii, and yet here she is. Walking through the desert. At sunset. Alone.

At least it’s getting cooler as the sun goes down. She closes her eyes and breathes slowly, counting each breath; for what she’s planning, she needs a clear mind. If she concentrates, she can feel the aether warming her fingertips as she gets closer. _Not much farther now. _

Where the drifting sand has been blown away by the ceaseless desert wind, there is a plateau of bare rock overlooking Zahar’ak. It’s far enough from where the tempered amal’jaa worship that she need not fear curious sentries, and so aspected to wind and fire aether that sparks start running over her skin each time she flexes her fingers.

She finds the least sandy patch of rock and sits down. Thinks, belatedly,_ I should have brought a drum_. Her own heartbeat will have to serve to mark time.

Amal’jiic words come clearly to her—words to call on He Whose Claws Trail Lava, Whose Breath Is The Desert Wind—but she pushes them aside. She’s not seeking to inflame Ifrit tonight. No, tonight is for calm. Steadiness. Banked embers and the peace that comes after the fight. Hamujj Gah has told her it will work.

She inhales.

Exhales.

And lets the warm night wind scour her worries away.


	15. The Thorn In The Foot (Rrisya Otombe)

_Walk softly in the forest. Cut no trees. Hunt no beasts, though your family be starving. Let yourself be defanged, declawed; praise us for showing you the ways of harmony and civilization. Remember that you are good and respectable citizens of Gridania, not tree-dwelling savages, and your faith matters not unless it be for the Twelve. Remember you exist only on the sufferance of the Elementals, and you should be grateful—grateful—for your life in such a blessed place, such a holy and peaceful place. Wood’s Will Be Done. _

It is a constant refrain in your chest, as near to you as your own heartbeat. Never spoken aloud—of course not, they would never be so _crude_—but spoken all the same in a thousand sneers and mutters and whispers that follow the curl of your tail. Outsiders think your city is serene, never seeing the rot beneath.

When the whispers rise to a roar—when your people cry for justice—you lift your spear. And you strike.

You need not strike again.

_Lower your eyes when you address your betters. Raise no hand in your own defense. Quarry no stone, for we have no need when there is good Imperial steel. Remember that if you prove yourselves, you may become good and respectable citizens of Garlemald and not eikon-worshipping savages begging for the aid of false gods. Remember you exist only on the sufferance of the Empire, and you should be grateful—grateful—for your life in such a civilized place, such an orderly and peaceful place. Ave Imperium._

Across the border, you discover it isn’t so different. True, the ground is bare and the sun is bright, too hot on your thick-furred ears, but you’ve heard this refrain before. You see it written in the eyes of the Ala Mhigans, in the soaring steel of Imperial castrums. Outsiders don’t think of Ala Mhigo at all.

Like your people, they cry for justice. Like your people, they cry for vengeance.

And you’re used to fighting thugs in masks.


	16. Jitter (Gantsetseg Bayaqud, Ritanelle Soleil)

_Squeaksqueaksqueak._

“Gan.”

_Squeak sque_— ”Hm?”

“Is that necessary? I mean, really, really necessary?”

“I’m _bored_.”

“Fold paper cranes. Doodle on scrap paper. Count ceiling beams. Anything that doesn’t make _noise_.”

“But we’ve been waiting here for a _whole bell_. Is this meeting with Lord Whoever—“

“Aymeric de Borel.”

“—really that important? I know about the heretics, but couldn’t they have just picked _one_ of us? You don’t need me in this frozen hellhole.”

“Bodyguard. And...”

“What?”

_Clunk_. “...If they have a _problem_ with au ra like Gridania has a problem with Duskwights, I’m not bloody well lifting a finger to help them even if their feckin’ city burns to the ground.”

“...You know, I kind of doubt they even know what au ra _are_.”

“That doesn’t actually improve our chances here. You know how people react to unfamiliar things!”

“Aye, like when I made you try kumiss—“

“You don’t do that to milk! Anyway. _Anyway_. We’ve gotta wait for ‘em to show, and I’ve gotta go over these notes. So I’d like _quiet_. No tapping your tail on the floor, no bouncing in your seat—it makes the cushions squeak—and no _humming_.”

“Aye-aye, boss lady!”

Silence.

Silence.

_Squeaksqueaksque—_

“_Gantsetseg!”_


	17. Obeisant (Tiber Gallius, Portia Brewster)

Garlemald has no gods.

It’s a fact as immutable as gravity. The sky is blue, water is wet, and the people of Garlemald have no gods. The Eorzeans scorn and pity them by turns—there will be no miracles for them, no beings of power and faith to call out to when they stumble, no magic which is (they say) the gods’ great gift to Spoken races. Among all the peoples of this star, they stand alone.

Garlemald needs no gods.

They’re very clear about this, too. Their longest epic poem (and in a land where winter lasts a solid nine months, they have a lot of contenders for the title) runs to seven volumes in its standard edition and has as many variations as there are valleys in the high mountains they call home, but all of them include the pivotal scene in the third act where Prometheus’s tribe gives him up for dead—only for his daughter to cry out, _Ye sons of stone _(for she, Pyrrha Ferraria, will be the first to smelt iron)_ no one is coming to save us! Then shall we lay down and die in the snow, or shall we seize with our own hands the means of our salvation?_ And though their current motto may proclaim them the Hand and the God, Garlean elders still swear by their old creed—_by our own hands._ Hands offered, clenched, interlinked, upraised—the First Republican Hospital in the capital still bears, as its symbol, the downturned open hand offered in succor to the lowly. There are no miracles. There are only men, and what men may do.

And if you are a child of the Garlean Empire as it stands now, the greatest of men is your Emperor. You swear in his name, take up arms in his name, die—if he commands it—in his name. By his decree, schoolchildren stand each morning with their hands on their hearts to pledge allegiance to Garlemald’s chain-emblazoned flag, and their first song is the national anthem.

Garlemald has no gods.

When Tiber is asked why he swears in the Emperor’s name, he cannot answer.

(Portia stopped swearing by higher powers a long time ago.)


	18. Wilt (Tiphanie Mercer)

Finnea Mercer had a bad feeling in her chest before she even opened the door to her big sister’s room. Tiphanie had claimed the bedroom that had once been shared by their elder brothers before both men had moved out, and the little space just off the upstairs sitting room was stuffy at the best of times. Easy to heat, but stuffy. And she kept _plants_ in there.

Plants that she, Finnea, had promised to keep alive while Tiphanie was on her diplomatic mission to newly-freed Ala Mhigo.

_Did I water them yesterday? Or was that the day before? Fury, I can’t remember…_

“Oooh, seven hells. Tiffy’s aspidistras!”

Mocianne was at her elbow, peering into the room beyond with an expression of dread in her huge yellow eyes. “She’s going to be _so mad_ you didn’t water them.”

Finnea reflexively jabbed the youngest Mercer sibling in the ribs. “Weren’t you supposed to remind me?”

Those big yellow eyes narrowed, and Finnea had the unpleasant thought that they’d all inherited something from their mother. While she liked to flatter herself that she’d gotten her mother’s grace, it was an undisputed fact that Mocie had somehow wound up with the dragon’s share of the athletic prowess. She’d seen her little sister jump from a standing start to reach the highest shelf in the store. “I did. _You_ were too busy thinking about walking out with Boiselont Fracillien to pay attention. You know he’s got a girlfriend?”

Finnea’s jaw and heart both dropped. “He what? How would you—how did he—“

“Mistress Silmontaix.” Mocianne said it like it left a bad taste in her mouth—as well it should, for she was a notorious social climber. “She came into the shop last night, just all over the moons how her daughter was being courted by your Boisie.” Her ears twitched thoughtfully as she added, “I already wrote to Tiffy. Don’t worry, she’ll break all his windows for you. _I_ wanted to duel him, but Mama said no.”

She grimaced. Boiselont hadn’t been a great suitor anyway, but the _nerve_ of him made him hope viciously that Tiffy would break more than his windows. “...Thanks. Anyway, plants?”

Mocianne held up a watering can. It sloshed. “Plants.”

Tiphanie’s room was dark at this time of day, shaded by the buildings outside, and so Finnea had to light candles to reveal the extent of the floral carnage. While she did, Mocianne poked cautiously at a wilted leaf. “I think it just…” It crumbled at her touch. “Oops.”

“Maybe it just needs...water…” Finnea bit her lip at the sight of the hanging plants in the windows. All of them drooped; the sensitive plant had collapsed dramatically, and the hen-and-chicks had turned brown. The tiny, carefully tended miniature tree on the nightstand hadn’t fared better, with a telltale ring of shed needles around its pot and very few clinging stubbornly to its branches. The aspidistras slumped in the corner like corpses.

The sisters glanced at each other. On one hand, it was Definitely Finnea’s Fault. On the other hand, Tiffy was ridiculously proud of her plants (“I didn’t even need to use magic!”) and the loss of everything she’d worked so hard to establish would crush her. On a third hand, _if_ they pooled their respective savings together they could probably replace the collection before she came back.

“I’ll stitch you a new cloak.”

“I won’t say _anything_ to Tiffy. Deal?”

“Deal.”


	19. Radiant (Ritanelle Soleil)

_ **Hear. ** _

It resounds in her head like a bell, the groan of it overlaid with a thousand thousand chimes. She _is_ the sound; she’s been hollowed out and scraped clean for this voice to live within her.

_ **Feel.** _

And it _throbs_. She feels it in her own heartbeat, in her bones and kidneys. Her skin itches with aether and something else, an impact—_oh_, the part of her that hasn’t been utterly subsumed registers, _I’ve fallen off the bench._

_ **Think.** _

She finds her voice—at least, she _thinks_ she finds her voice—at least, she thinks she found _something_, and she hopes it’s a voice. _Who are you?_

_ **Warrior of Light.** _

_I’m not—_

_ **Beloved daughter.** _

_Oh._

In her mind’s eye, a mountain of crystal light—azure effulgence, blinding and beautiful and comforting all at once, and it loves her. Shards of itself—of Herself—circle slowly around Her in a stately dance. She floats in a sea of Her embrace, overwhelmed with peace. _Mother. _(The thought sends a pang through her heart; her own mother never made her so sure of her love. There were always conditions, always demands to be quieter, gentler, better.)

_**Daughter. **_The crystal’s voice is infinitely gentle. _**Receive of me this power.**_

She takes a breath, and heat fills her. Heat and courage and _strength_—she can feel the aether within her swell and roil, shimmering just under her skin and needing only her will to draw it out. She can do anything, _be_ anything; she can shake the heavens with a breath if she dared. It would be easy, it would be _so easy_—

_ **Think.** _

She opens her eyes.

“Miss?”

Slowly, the world around her comes back into focus. Gone is the aetherial sea; in its place is the plain wooden deck and the opposite bench of the ferry to Limsa Lominsa. It’s partly blocked by a pair of battered boots and a weather-beaten outstretched hand; following that hand upwards, she meets a pair of concerned eyes set in a travel-lined face. _Right._ She remembers now. _The peddler sitting across from me. _“Mwuh?” Her head doesn’t hurt—which is weird, normally after a vision like that her skull wants to split at the seams—but she’s not sure she remembers words right now.

“Are you alright?” She lets him steer her back into her seat, feeling something uncoil a little in relief when he pats her shoulder comfortingly. “You looked like you were havin’ a fit; I didn’t know if I oughtta wake you.”

_Hear. Feel. Think._ She breathes out slowly, letting her gaze focus on the horizon. “I’m alright, sir. Thank you.”

Strangely enough, she realizes that she’s telling the truth.


	20. Bisect (Portia Brewster)

There was a before, and there is an after.

Portia bas Gallius was—well, not _frivolous_, not exactly, but completely unconcerned with anything past the borders of Garlemald proper. It was a long way away, after all, and full of superstitious savages with absolutely no real civilization to speak of. She liked dancing, mild drinking, and curling up with stacks of paperback detective novels. She fought with her baby brother for control of the radio station, but they still took the train together each weekday—him to school, and her to her job helping Garlemald’s citizens navigate their city’s bureaucratic labyrinth. She had a boyfriend—later a fiance—who taught her to swim in the Imperial officers’ vast gymnasium and took her to dinner every weekend. She’d been looking forward to marriage, to a life together in their own house with a dog and a yard for it to run in (a luxury in the city, but—as Petros had said, grinning—what else was a pilus prior’s salary good for?)

And then the moon shattered, taking _bas Gallius_ with it.

Portia Brewster still likes dancing and paperback novels. She drinks less frequently, but harder—after the things she’s done, the things she’s seen, it’s so easy for one drink to multiply. And she lets it. At least she doesn’t fight with her baby brother anymore; they’ve both been through too much for her to worry about trivial things where her (only) family is concerned. She hasn’t thought of marriage or a house with a yard (though she has, by some miracle, acquired a dog). There’s nobody she wants to share it with now. The biggest change of all, though?

She remembers the falling moon. She remembers the world burning under Garlemald’s boot while its citizens laughed and drank the night away.

She cares _very much_ about the world outside Garlemald now.


	21. Crunch (Rrisya Otombe)

The noise woke her from a sunlit nap on her sleeping platform. Hiss jumped off her stomach and stalked to the edge; grumbling, she rolled over and squinted through the leaves to see who was disturbing the dry leaf litter at the base of her tree. From the ground, she knew it looked like any other disused camp in the South Shroud; the firepit had been smothered bells ago, and the rough-carved boards on rocks could have last been used as seats in the Fifth Astral Era. Only those who saw the skulls wrapped in blue linen scarves would know it was anything but, and only the truly desperate or determined would come this far into morbol territory.

The shape currently prodding the hearth with a stick was probably elezen; their hooded robes made it impossible for her to see their face but did nothing to disguise that they were hugely pregnant. She saw no visible weapons, sniffed the air—_no great soul_, whispered the Otogandha hunt god from its totem—but took note of the bulging satchel slung over their shoulder.

They sat down on one of her makeshift chairs and cleared their—her—throat. “Are you there? I heard—I heard that you could help folk like us.” Her voice was shaking.

Rrisya grabbed a mask at random—an aldgoat ram today, a gift by way of one of Ritanelle’s comrades—and jumped down onto a lower branch. The woman had clearly been expecting her, but her dark eyes were wide with shock anyway. Before she could start freezing up—or worse, fleeing—Rrisya spoke. “That depends. What do you rrequire?”

She dropped her gaze and bit her lip; Rrisya’s eyes followed her movements as she flipped open the satchel to reveal an assortment of glass jars packed between herb bundles. “I brought you these. Ah—in...payment? If you’ll...” The mumble was nearly inaudible.

Rrisya’s bare feet hit the ground. Standing, she had the advantage of height—and a better look at her visitor, who was blue-skinned and blue-haired and looked like she could use a few more good meals. “Speak.”

Silence.

And then words poured out of the woman like water from a burst dam. “I need you to kill the Wailer Lancifer Habelliard! He and his squadron—my man was hunting to provide for us, and they killed him! He was defenseless, he never hurt anyone in his life! My children—I—we’re _alone_—” She dissolved into sobs, and Rrisya stood there like a stone.

It wasn’t hesitation. She wasn’t entirely sure _what_ she was feeling. On one end of the spear, Habelliard certainly deserved death. Deserved it several times over, for this woman’s pain and the lives of her children. On the other…on the other… _He is Rita’s brother. What would she say, were I to slay him for a stranger’s sake? Could I face her, knowing they would truly never speak again because of my actions? _“Habelliarrrd, you say. Is he not a lieutenant?” She knew he was.

The woman looked up, hastily wiping her face on her sleeve. Rrisya’s heart broke a little. “Um. I...think so…?”

She steeled herself. “I cannot slay a ranking officerr and expect to escape theirr reach. But the rremains of his cohorrt…” She allowed herself a sharp smile, knowing the woman would see it. “I will brring you the heads of the men who fired the arrows, who drew theirr steel against your man. I will see that you have justice.”

Horribly, her visitor looked like she was going to cry again. “Oh, thank you, _thank you_—”

Rrisya knelt, inspecting the jars that had been intended as tribute. Plucking up one of them—strawberry jam—she closed the satchel and stood up. The woman was watching her now, confusion writ in the tilt of her ears, and she kept her face resolutely neutral. “No thanks necessarrry. Keep your food—for yourr children. You will need it.” She sniffed the air—still clear. This early in the day, the morbols would hopefully be sleeping. “Can you make it back to the path?”

The woman pulled her hood lower and made a motion that was probably a nod. “I’m...I’ll be alright. Thank you—again—Jerresiaux was all to me…”

Ritanelle, she thought, would probably have something encouraging or at least reassuring to say. But all Rrisya could do was nod and leap back into the trees to watch her go.

She had a hunt to plan.


	22. Tradition, Tradition (Q'sevet Tia)

_Grandson, I hear what you’re saying, but it’s time you learned the same things I did when I came here and became Nunh. There are things a man of the Thanalan Puk tribe does not do. _

_A man of the Puk tribe does not study magic._ At first, Sevet grudgingly understands this. Magic is _cool_, yeah—but if you have to fight (your uncle, father, friends, _brother_) it’s way too easy to kill them with a fireball or a bolt of lightning. Bare hands are better, or weapons if it’s a really important fight over being Nunh or something. It makes it fair. But when they leave—when Kerahn picks up a staff and the howling winds follow, when his brother _beams_ at him—he knows it had never been fair.

_A man of the Puk tribe does not let a challenge go unanswered. _This, too, makes sense in the mind of a child. If you back down from a fight you’re a coward, and a coward is the very worst thing to be. Bruises and scratches are badges of honor, echoed by worse injuries on the other guy (or borne bravely, if you lost). As a son of the nunh, Sevet gets his fair share of such challenges. It’s only later that he thinks _but why must we fight at all? _

_A man of the Puk tribe does not leave the tribe lands, save in times of direst need._ He supposes he can see the reason behind that. Women—well, there are always a  _lot_ of women doing women’s work, which will continue on just fine even if some of them leave for adventures or join other tribes or go hunting for new candidates. But there are never more than a handful of Seeker men, and it’s the men who have to watch the older children and memorize the genealogies and handle all the trade routes. Oh, and deal with the Amal’jaa. Sevet doesn’t want to do  _any_ of that. 

_Are you listening, my boy?_

_I hear you, Grandpa._

_Good boy. You’ll make a fine man someday._

Q’sevet Tia rolls dice in cheap taverns and tumbles handsome men in back alleys. He races fast birds for a cheering crowd, glorying in their applause when he wins. He lets the losses and the squabbles and the dark times roll off his back like water and doesn’t bother putting up his fists for anything so ephemeral as pride. He’s drunk and danced his way through Eorzea, and doesn’t plan on stopping any time soon.

Being  _a good member of the Puk tribe_ is for people like his sister, who carries their grandmother’s advice like a flame in her heart. (It had absolutely been a distaff counterpart of their grandfather’s. He  _knows_ their grandmother.) 

It’s not for him.

_Sorry, Grandpa._


	23. Parched (Tiber Gallius)

They’d given him a blanket; Ala Mhigan nights were considered cold to people who hadn’t grown up in Garlemald. (Back home, he wouldn’t even have worn a jacket on nights like this.) Tiber pulled it up over his head and squeezed his eyes shut as though it would help. _Think of nothing. The void. Darkness. Absolutely...nothing…_

Unfortunately, he had a very good memory and an even better imagination. And only a fulm’s thickness of stone separated him from Vivian oen Capsari. He imagined he could hear the man _breathing_, and it made his skin tingle.

They’d touched once, a brief clasp of bare hands. He could still feel it.

He breathed out slowly, remembering the warmth of Capsari’s fingers. Remembering how their eyes had met, how the anger in them nearly set the cell alight before his magic had had the chance to. Remembering the way he’d rolled his shoulders, preparing for a fight (and false _gods_ how did a signifer wind up with those muscles, the thin shirts they’d been issued as prisoners of war hid just about _nothing_), as he’d snarled _Tell me what you know of Carteneau._

He’d ripped Tiber’s world out from under him, and then taken his hand like a friend. Tiber wasn’t sure which was worse.

Capsari was strong and beautiful and brilliant and absolutely, utterly untouchable. In the darkness, all he could see behind his eyelids was the way the man moved, lashing at the walls with his magic and his voice like a caged lion. The grille that separated them sliced his form into separate frames, each hypnotizing—here the curve of his shoulder and hip (the space perfect for Tiber’s palm to rest), there the fall of his shaggy hair into his face (soft and thick, just the right length for Tiber to bury a hand in and tilt his head up)_._ Capsari was a good half-fulm shorter than him, but stripped of the uniform that had contracted him into an empty shell he managed somehow to take up what felt like Tiber’s entire world.

And he’d told him that skin contact—_skin contact_, fuck his _entire_ life—would let him read Tiber’s thoughts if he so wished. Tiber shivered on the hard cot and hoped that the Eorzean gods really did exist and might take pity on him, that the range of that particular ability really did only extend to physical touch. _If you knew what I’ve thought about you..._

Attempts to clear his thoughts were not working. He’d had _way_ too much practice picturing Capsari naked back when he’d been under the (incorrect) assumption that the inside of his own head was inviolate. Attempts to remind himself that he stood no chance—he was Garlean, a former officer of the Empire, they weren’t even _friends_—were likewise useless against the part of his brain that cared much more about the shape of Capsari’s arse. Cursing Hydaelyn in general and the entire concept of the Echo in particular also didn’t work, but did—briefly—make him feel a bit better. He threw his blanket off with a grimace. What he needed was _cold_. Cold, a clear mind with chaste thoughts, and sleep.

When he opened his eyes again, it was morning. One out of three was better than nothing.


	24. Unctuous (Evrard Briardionne, Erasmus eir Niveus)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of [this plot](https://ffxiv-swarm.tumblr.com/tagged/plot%3A-a-fool-for-sacrifice)

_Blessed Fury, grant me the strength to not punch this man in the face._

Erasmus Westmoore—no, _eir Niveus_ now, he is a traitor to Ishgard and Eorzea and any sort of principles—is quite possibly the most infuriating man Evrard has ever spoken to, and Evrard has spent multiple bells at a time in the presence of Grand Inquisitor Charibert. Then again, Charibert had been terrifying in his sadistic conviction. Erasmus? Erasmus is just...irritating. Like sand in his shoe, or a piece of spinach wedged between his back teeth. The man possesses no sense of morality or guilt whatsoever.

And to Evrard’s immediate and immense shame, he was a member of his own parish. _Had we met before he deserted, I might have helped him...Fury, his poor parents must be rolling in their graves._ He has to take a moment to rub the bridge of his nose, where he feels a headache coming on.

Though Niveus is sitting in the dirt with his hands shackled behind his back, he has the temerity to grin. “Aw, c’mon, Father. The heat gettin’ to you? See, we ain’t in Ishgard anymore, you don’t have to wear so many layers—”

The temperature around them drops like a rock. Evrard takes a slow, deep breath in through his nose, willing himself to be calm before ice starts forming on his armor. “Ishgard is far colder than this, yes. The Calamity changed much. But I am...pleased to report that _our_ parish is no longer quite so poorly as it has been.”

He shrugs and averts his face, but Evrard catches some emotion—curiousity? guilt?—crossing it. “Well. I’m sure that’s great news for them.”

_I will not strike him. I will not._ “Your grandmother, Fury rest her soul, would have rejoiced to see the day the Dragonsong War ended.”

With vicious satisfaction, he meets Niveus’s wide-eyed stare. “...Granny’s dead?”

“These past three years, aye.” _So you do feel something._ His words felt like acid in his mouth, but he spat them out anyway. “I brought her her last rites. She prayed _every day_ that you were alive and safe somewhere. How she would weep to see you now.”

Niveus shifts uncomfortably, and the grin that spreads across his face shows too many teeth. “I’m alive, ain’t I? And not been harmed too bad. See—she got her wish! Been safe as houses in Garlemald for most of it. Shame I couldn’t be there, but—”

It’s too much. He can recognize the signs of his own temper close to the breaking point, and he cannot—_will not_—take it out on a defenseless man. No matter how aggravating that man is. So, with ears pinned flat back and arctic winds eddying around his footfalls, he strides back to rejoin Alan and Q’sevet for their rescue mission.


	25. Trust (Ritanelle Soleil/Emmanellain Fortemps)

“The last time _I_ panicked I killed two people, so you’re actually doing much—”

“_What?!”_

Emmanellain was staring at her, his expression and the set of his ears combining into shock-verging-on-horror. Ritanelle felt her stomach drop into her shoes. She’d said that out loud. At normal conversational volume. In the middle of the Jeweled Crozier on market day. And here, she’d felt safe enough to remove her mask. People knew her face. _Why yes, Master Wood Wailer, the lady with the rune tattoo… _“I...uh.” _I’m an adventurer. A Scion. I’ve killed more than a few people but that was all deliberate and Emm knows it, he never lets gossip go and I—_

She turned her face away and took a deep breath. _Right. Breathe. _Before she could do anything else stupid, she reached out and grabbed Emm’s hand like a lifeline. “Come with me.”

He let himself be led out of the Crozier, past the crowds to one of the innumerable high ledges overlooking the lower city. At some point he’d twined his fingers around hers, and the firm grip had almost frozen her in place before she’d forged ahead regardless. But he’d stayed quiet—uncharacteristically so, but then they’d had a long and terrible day—until she stopped, pulled her hand free, and leaned heavily on the wall.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Then, staring out at the marbled sky—she couldn’t bear to see his face—she broke the silence. “I never told you how I got the scar on my neck.”

She remembered him tracing it with his lips. “No...I’m afraid you didn’t, old girl.”

The clouds shifted above her, gray on gray. “Wailers. My brother, you see—he’s a Wood Wailer. Was. Is. I dunno. His mates—well. We’re Duskwights. _Greys_, they call us, when they wanna be rude.” Her gloved hands clenched on the stone barrier, anchoring her to the earth. She was _fine_. She could say this. “They thought he was getting _ideas above his station_. So they—”

Oh, her eyes were watering. She blinked furiously to clear them; Emm took a step towards her, and she shook her head. “Don’t.” _If you touch me I’ll break. If you come to me with your compassion I’ll— _“They tried t’ kill me! As an example, they said. That’s how—my neck, and the ones on my arms.” She swallowed hard, fixing her gaze on a particularly dark cloud shaped vaguely like a bat. “So I set them on fire and I _ran_, Emm. I ran all the way to Ul’dah and I ain’t never looked back, I can’t, because Rinette Habelliard is wanted for murder and it’s _better_ if her mum and da think she’s dead!”

There. She’d said the whole thing without crying. She was very proud of herself for not crying. And, if Emm reacted the way she dearly hoped he would (awkwardly, self-pityingly), she would be able to go on not crying.

She heard him take the two steps necessary to bring himself to her side and turned her face away. “So, y’know, we all fuck up but at least you ain’t actually killed anyone yet.” _This is about you. Look, see? I’m trying to reassure you because I care about you, so please just take it. For once I am actually looking for Selfish Arse Emm here and not—_

His arm slid around her, turning her thoughts into static as the side of her head collided with his coat. She could feel the vibrations of his voice in her own chest, soft and encouraging. “And _you_, my darling, are still a certified hero. So I daresay you need not weep over stumbling at the start.”

Though she reflexively jabbed an elbow into his ribs—she had _not_ been weeping, thank you—she found herself smiling up at him anyway. He tended to have that effect on her; it was something about the strength of his hugs. He gave _excellent_ hugs. “Good, you understand my point. Now, if _I_ can be a hero, _you_ can recover from this.”

It was his turn to avert his gaze, ears drooping. “I’m not as brave as you are. I know I said—I _know_ this is something I must do on my own, but...will you come with me to speak to the Lord Commander? As moral support?” His voice nearly cracked on the last few words; he tried to cover it with a cough, but even if that had worked Rita was still watching him turn red to his eartips.

She remembered the terror of the first few days with fresh scars. She remembered Dariustel and his fellow Redbellies, patient and sure and sharp as knives, setting her feet on the road to Ul’dah with the knowledge that she’d been prepared to walk it.

She leaned up to kiss Emmanellain’s cheek. “Of course I will.”


	26. Slosh (Gantsetseg Bayaqud)

The Reunion way of making kumiss was with dzo milk, in great wooden vats. With such a mild kick to it, you had to drink a _lot_ in order to get properly drunk—and it was so rich that reaching that state took entirely too much fortitude. The traditional way was better.

“...I’m going to regret asking this, but why are there leather bags hanging from the ceiling?”

Gan reached up and punched one, making the contents slosh as she turned to grin at her boyfriend. “I’m making kumiss!”

Alan did not look impressed at her brewing skills and resourcefulness. Alan, in fact, looked more confused than anything else. “And…?”

Oh, right. Of course Alan had no idea what went into proper kumiss. Garleans drank—actually, she wasn’t entirely _sure_ what Garleans drank. She’d heard something about vodka, but according to the Gallius siblings the traditional Garlean drink was “everything.” Everything except kumiss. “It’s horse milk! You put it in bags and shake it a little until it turns into booze. Usually you’d sling it over your saddle but West Wind had enough exercise today—and do you _know_ how much horse milk _costs_ here? If the bag breaks and it spills I will cry.”

He blinked slowly at her. “Uh. A lot?” She saw the exact moment the rest of her words caught up to him, because his whole face twisted. “I’m sorry, did you say…?”

_Everyone acts like they’ve never heard of fermented dairy right up until I ask them if they have cheese here. Is it the horse thing? I think it’s the horse thing. _She flopped down next to him on the rug, the better to teasingly flip the end of her tail across his thigh. “Your people make booze from turnips, Al. _Turnips_. At least milk is already a liquid.”

“But…”

He was blushing, which absolutely deserved a kiss. She flashed him a grin when she reclaimed use of her mouth. “Wait until it’s ready. At least try it? For me?”

Azim’s dick, he turned red all the way to his (cute, squishy) _ears_. It was the most adorable thing she’d ever seen. “Uh. Um. Okay.”

Gods, she hoped it turned out right.


	27. Palaver (Tiphanie Mercer)

Master Guillespie is talking to her. Or rather, _at_ her. The wall just over his left shoulder has an interesting splotch in the stone that resembles a chocobo and would probably resemble one _more_ if she squinted. She doesn’t, but only because squinting would alert him to the fact that she really isn’t paying attention.

“So of course Madame Tempscire _must_ see that to raise taxes on buildings with more than three stories would unfairly impact homeowners like myself who are just trying to make a living, after all—and wouldn’t it also harm your family? I wonder that you can support it! I know that your shop has been in the family for simply _ages_, Miss Mercer, and of course it is a cornerstone of the neighborhood but you cannot deny that to pay higher taxes—why, ‘twould cut quite sharply into your profit margins! And you with...hmm, forgive me, two unmarried younger sisters still at home?”

She’s seen the homes Guillespie owns and rents to tenants. Three stories with cracked windowframes, listing foundations, and no running water, squeezing two families to a floor. She notices with a single involuntary flick of her ears that he’s entirely discounted any marriage prospects _she_ may have—he’s one of those men who still isn’t quite sure whether the political sphere is properly ladylike, and so of course a single female politician cannot possibly be holding any secret loves in her heart. (Not that she _is_, but it’s the principle of the thing.)

And he’s brought up her family’s shop. She dislikes that.

For the first time she meets his gaze directly, and has the satisfaction of seeing him cut off whatever he’s about to say. She’s been told it’s something about her eyes. “I do, sir. ‘Tis kind of you to think of them. I cannot speak for Madame Tempscire, but I may assure you that _my_ family does not balk at whatever taxes may be levied for the good of Ishgard and for those less fortunate than us. Does not our gil pay the wages of the Temple Knights?”

He shifts awkwardly from foot to foot. “Ah, yes…that is certainly true…”

“Indeed, sir!” She arranges her face into a smile. “If you have misgivings about the allocation of the gil raised by your taxes, perhaps you ought to bring it up to Madame Tempscire. I know she is greatly concerned by transparency in funding.”

He can’t hold her gaze. “...Of course, Miss Mercer. That…is a fine idea.”

While he doesn’t actually flee, she notes the way his footfalls mark double-time and feels a small, vicious swell of satisfaction.


	28. Attune (Ritanelle Soleil)

Amh Araeng feels like home.

It takes a while for Ritanelle to realize this. Nothing really feels like home here, everything just slightly off-kilter or _wrong_ in ways that make her want to scratch her skin off, make her remember that this shard is only a twisted reflection of the place she calls home. The place where her friends are. (And they are here too but oh, _oh_ it isn’t the same and she misses the Rising Stones so badly it makes her teeth ache.)

But when she’s sent to the desert—so like Thanalan that she expects to see Hamujj Gah greet her in Mord Souq while the Mord are exclaiming over her command of their tongue—she feels some of the tension in her chest ease. Amh Araeng feels _familiar_. It feels like water on a hot day, like gentle hands steadying her shoulders, like calloused fingers at her temples rubbing away a headache and telling her _that’s enough for the day, you did very well. _Her ears tilt at each whisper on the breeze, certain she’ll hear a voice call her name.

And then she sees the wall of crystal serving as Minfilia’s grave and memorial both (the end result of accepting the burden their Mother placed on her, on Her _Beloved Daughter)_ and she understands.

She weeps, but she understands.


	29. Part of your World (Shinju Toyotama)

The gang of adventurers—scruffy, heavily armed, and mismatched—had been hovering in the Mealvaan’s Gate main lobby for the better part of a bell when R’baharra realized that they hadn’t moved and didn’t seem to be in line for anything. Moreover, they were muttering amongst themselves and passing around a sheet of paper in a way she did not like. She caught a few shifty glances and made note of the way their gazes especially lingered on Raen customers. No—on Raen _assessors_. Fellow arcanists, like her.

When she caught the words “Sui-no-Sato” under the big roegadyn’s breath, she marched up and addressed them in the same loud, clear voice she used to deal with surly merchants. “Can I help you, sers?”

They exchanged variations on the same nervous look. It was the roegadyn who spoke; he looked oddly relieved. “Sorry, but do you know a, uh...” He paused, glancing down at the paper. “Toyotama-no-Shinju? Lives or works here, came from Othard about two years ago?”

_Shinju._ They weren’t friends—at least, not close friends—but she knew her. The girl was only about the same age as her youngest sister. She remembered sharing grilled fish and asking about her course load, wincing over the same teachers and sighing in admiration over the department chairs. She didn’t remember if Shinju had ever said anything about her family. “...It rings a bell, but I know a lot of people. Why?”

“Well...” Oh, they were awkward. Awkward was never a good sign. Her ears twitched as she reassured herself of the presence of three on-duty Yellowjackets just outside. The roegadyn looked at his paper again before finally turning it towards her. “She look like this? White scales, blue-green skin and hair--”

“--Blue tongue--”

“Got this webbing between her tail spines, her mama said, just like hers--”

“Fangs.”

“Ain’t that just an auri thing?”

“--Not the way _she’s_ got ‘em.”

“I can _show you_ if you’d like--”

“Her poor parents and her fiance are _frantic_. She hasn’t been heard from since she left, and they’re all aflutter thinkin’ something _awful’s_ happened to her.” The Keeper gazing up at her was attempting to use her huge round eyes to devastating effect. “Please, Miss, have you heard from her? Sui-no-Sato—I don’t know how much you know about her village but they never talk to _any_ outsiders, her family is desperate!”

R’baharra’s tail curled behind her. _Family. Parents, a fiance. Which...she’s never mentioned. Not to me, not to P’tajha or her roommates or anyone. If she missed them, I am sure the people she talked to would know. And she’s never posted letters home._

“I’m sorry. I can only tell you I’ve heard her name spoken. That’s all.” Her tone shifted back to business as she met each of their eyes in turn. “Now, if you’ve none of the assessors’ valuable time to take up today, I suggest you move along.”

(Unbeknownst to her, Shinju heard her. For the first time, she felt afraid.)


	30. Darkness (Evrard Briardionne)

Evrard is not particularly attached to his heritage. He has no great desire to burrow (in fact he feels slightly claustrophobic in any space where he can’t stretch out fully), feels no urge to collect rocks no matter how shiny they are, and has never once entertained any thoughts of drawing on the walls. Alchemy and witchcraft—the pomanders Duskwights are known for—hold no allure for him. He feels only the usual faint unease in Gridania, on account of the obviously grey shade of his skin and whether the Wailers might take offense. (And he will be happy to explain, _at length_, why they have made an error in judgement. Despite the difference in garb, they are very much like the Temple Knights, and as easily cowed.) He doesn’t even like Mun-Tuy sauce, and the idea of making alcohol out of it makes him feel ill. In short, he’s not a very Duskwight-y Duskwight.

But the moon rises, and night falls, and he leaves the house for a walk.

By now he’s made a routine out of it. Out the door, up the stairs to the landing, a wave to any neighbors who might be out barbecuing or socializing (brief contact only; he never feels like being friendly on these walks), and over the walkway that leads above and behind Vidofnir’s Wings to a block of apartments. If he badly needs to think, sometimes he makes it as far as the pools.

Tonight he doesn’t need to think. Tonight he needs to move, and he isn’t sure why. If it was only ordinary energy—well. Busari is very happy to wear him out. But this is something different, some instinct of the longer nights and earlier sunsets.

_We are supposed to be nocturnal. _He remembers his father telling him that when he didn’t want to get out of bed on the morning. It had always been a tone that said _I don’t want to be awake either, but what can you do?_ He wonders, now, if it had been the demands of the shop or some primal instinct that had always kept him up long after dusk. (Part of him also wonders if lack of sleep had hastened his parents’ deaths. He pushes that thought away.)

He keeps walking. It’s a leisurely pace, affording him time to study the neighborhood. His gaze roams over the lawns and the houses attached to them (_by the Fury, is that entire house shaped like a moogle?) _but he absorbs nothing. His mind is a pleasant blank even as his ears catalogue each familiar noise in the night. All he knows is that this—being outside in the night air, the darkness a comforting velvet shroud around him—feels right. It’s certainly a balm to his eyes, which ache in bright light until he must wear sunglasses.

After a thoughtful moment—remembering faintly that it’s been said his people have the sharpest hearing of any spoken race—he closes them entirely, and lets his ears guide him back home. Focuses only on the sound of his footfalls, the crackle of fires, the sighing of the night air, and how they inform the space around him. He can’t see a thing, but noises in the night sketch the edges of his world just as well.

He makes it home unscathed. Maybe he’s more of a Duskwight than he thought.


End file.
